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A southern Ohio school district has agreed to keep a portrait of Jesus off district property and
pay $95,000 to settle a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the state chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union and a Wisconsin foundation.

In the settlement accepted today by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, the Jackson City
School District agreed to pay $3,000 in damages to each of the suit’s five anonymous plaintiffs.

The district also will pay $80,000 to cover legal fees incurred by the Ohio chapter of the
ACLU and the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison, Wis., which sued the district on behalf
of the three parents and two students.

The picture of Jesus had hung in either Jackson High School or the district’s middle school
since 1947. Jackson is 75 miles southeast of Columbus.

The lawsuit, filed in February, said the image was an unconstitutional government endorsement
of Christianity. The school board had argued that it belonged to the Hi-Y club, a religion-centered
student group that had the right to hang it in the school.

As the legal battle progressed, the district took the picture down in April. But the
plaintiffs alleged in later court documents that it had remained in the high-school building, in
view of those entering an art-room storage area. The painting also had been displayed on the school
lawn during a prayer meeting on May 2, the plaintiffs said in documents.

That stirred up another round of legal filings and caused more delays, James Hardiman, legal
director for the ACLU of Ohio, said today.

“This case could have ended before it began if the school had simply acknowledged that it is
not the government’s place to endorse one specific religion in a public school that children are
legally required to attend,” he said. “This is a basic constitutional principle backed up by
decades of case law.”

Messages left today for the school district’s attorneys and for Superintendent Phil Howard
were not returned, but in a statement released to the Associated Press, Howard said the attorneys
believed that settling was the “best-case scenario” because of the mounting expenses. He said the
district’s insurance, not taxpayers, will pay the damages and legal fees.